opposition rallies to get leader to quit

Supporters of Albanian opposition parties rallied on Saturday to ask Prime Minister Edi Rama to quit and pave the way to fresh polls, dispersing after throwing firecrackers and flares to police who responded with water jets and tear gas. Holding posters saying “Rama Go” or “Break your neck!”, several thousand protesters rejoiced when Democratic Party leader Lulzim Basha said the June 30 local elections, which they had boycotted, would be canceled by presidential decree.

“Our battle will continue until the departure of Edi Rama,” Basha told his supporters while closing their eighth national rally since February, when his party’s lawmakers cut ties to parliament. “His departure is not negotiable,” Basha added. The rally took place days after a German paper published leaked tapes showing how an accused drug trafficker in Durres told Socialist officials how he planned to coerce opposition backers to vote for them and help a friend become a lawmaker.

Basha says the tapes vindicate their claims that Rama’s Socialists stole the 2017 parliamentary elections to get a second term in power.....